a. Field of Invention
The invention relates to utility carts for voting equipment and, more particularly, to a specially-adapted multi-compartmentalized utility cart for storage, transport and or deployment of all voting equipment needed to create an optimal Voter Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB) station inclusive of two private voting stations for generating paper ballots (one being ADA-compliant) plus a private VVPB tabulation station all without moving the equipment off the utility cart.
b. Background of the Invention
Due to the infrequent nature of public elections voting equipment is kept in storage at each voting precinct, and at elections, utility carts are used for transporting the equipment from storage to a public, forum, and vice versa after the election. Voting machines are valuable electronic devices and are extremely heavy. Thus, a very robust utility cart is required to carry such devices. Still, elderly election officials often experience great difficulty in moving the voting equipment on and off the utility carts. The present inventor provided a partial solution to the problem in his co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/350,186 filed Jan. 13, 2012. This application described a voter cart with on-board deployable privacy curtain suspended from articulating support members pivotally attached to the cart. When deployed the privacy curtain suspends itself around a tall substantially enclosed area in from of a voting terminal seated in the cart, and encloses a voter standing in front of the voting terminal. This renders the terminal ready to use by the voter without ever removing the voting terminal from the cart, and so the terminal remains in the tamper-proof cart during voting as well as during transport and storage. However, there are a number of different types of balloting terminals that are used in either paper-based or electronic voting systems across the United States.
Many precincts are now moving toward a paper-based voting system, in particular, a Voter Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB) system station inclusive of touch terminal voting stations for generating punched or printed paper ballots, in combination with a ballot box tabulation station for counting the paper ballots.
These ballot box tabulation stations typically include both a ballot tabulation unit either permanently or temporarily secured to one or more ballot boxes. The ballot box and/or the ballot tabulation unit/ballot box combination may be expandable or collapsible and may come with additional accessories or features that alter its size and/or weight, such as batteries, locking mechanisms, varying types of privacy screens, tables, and specialty equipment to assist disabled persons in using the balloting terminal. As an example of one type of voting machine, Castro & Harris manufactures the ES&S Model M100 Ballot Counter, a high-speed central paper ballot counter which, when combined with a ballot box, is approximately the size if a large computer server (approximately 2.5′×2′×4.5′) and weighs approximately 20 lbs. By contrast, electronic balloting systems such as the AccuVote®-TSX distributed by Premier Election Solutions™ is roughly 1×2′×4″ in its un-deployed form and approximately 26 lbs. Some electronic balloting systems may also require stands to hold them in an upright position during voting.
Voters first use the VVPB terminals to generate paper ballots, then move to the ballot box tabulation station and teed in their ballots for counting. VVPB provides an effective paper trail by which to independently audit the election results. VVPB balloting systems additionally comprise a plurality of separate touch-screen ballot printers or manual ballot marking terminals, for example, to assist disabled voters in marking their paper ballots. An example of such a terminal is the ES&S AutoMARK voter assist terminal, which is 48 lbs and approximately 1.5′×2′×1′, although the dimensions of these and other balloting units may change between storage and deployment. Typically in the paper balloting system, each precinct will also provide one or more special voting terminals for handicapped persons. For example, Castro & Harris, Inc. distributes the AutoMARK™ voter assist terminal, a ballot-marking system designed to provide privacy and accessibility to voters who are blind, vision-impaired, or have a disability or condition that would make it difficult or impossible to mark a ballot with a typical paper ballot system. The AutoMARK terminal is sized at approximately 2′×1′×1.5′, although the dimensions of this and other balloting units may change between storage and deployment, and weighs 4 lbs.
VVPB systems introduce logistical complexity inasmuch as what could be done with a single all-electronic voting terminal now takes both a voting terminal and a ballot box/tabulator. Adding to the complexity, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that people with disabilities can access and use their voting facilities. The ADA's regulations and the ADA Standards for Accessible Design prescribe that some of the VVPB voting terminals and some of the ballot box tabulation stations at any facility accommodate wheelchair voters at the polling place. ADA standards make it difficult to design a VVPB-compatible utility cart that keeps a terminal ready to use by the voter while still seated in a tamper-proof cart. Moreover, the present inventor has determined that a preferred VVPB station would include two private voting stations with VVPB terminals for generating paper ballots, one being ADA-compliant, plus a private VVPB ballot box tabulation station. On the other hand, voting occurs in a multitude of precincts, the number and locations of which are chosen to accommodate all eligible voters in a given geographic area. Therefore, the population of eligible voters in a given area, along with the types of voting technology available to that precinct, will determine how many and which types of voting equipment (including ballot counting devices, ballot boxes, ballot marking systems and accessories) will be needed for a given polling location. In urban areas, a single polling facility may be required to accommodate hundreds of voters or more, and therefore a considerable amount of voting equipment must be moved to that polling place. In addition, such as in less populated areas, a single polling place could be chosen to accommodate multiple voting precincts. In some cases, neighboring precincts served by a single polling place may utilize different ballot styles such that multiple types of voting equipment is required to accurately mark, count, and store the disparate ballots. The type, quantity, variety, and overall weight of the voting equipment needed to outfit a single polling place thus fluctuates widely between polling centers based on population density and other factors, and changes as voting technology evolves. Thus, some degree of modularity is required to adapt the optimal numbers of voting terminals and ballot box tabulators.
Voting equipment is at its most vulnerable during transportation and storage. Thus, all the loaded equipment must be fully restrained against lateral and vertical motion, and yet all equipment must preferably be given fill access to their control panels, doors, etc. Moreover, any transport cart design should keep weight to a minimum with a framework that is as light weight as possible. What is needed is a multi-compartmentalized cart with robust mechanical restraints to protect against shifting of the equipment and yet full frontal and side access to both pieces of equipment to allow access to the consoles.
It would be greatly advantageous to provide a multi-compartmentalized utility cart for storage, transport and or deployment of a complete VVPB station inclusive of two private voting stations for generating paper ballots (one being ADA-compliant), plus a private VVPB tabulation station all without moving the equipment off the utility cart. The present invention provides the foregoing complete with multiple on-board deployable privacy curtains attached to the cart each station to enclose a voter standing or seated in front of the voting terminal or ballot box. The cart also includes multiple reconfigurable shelves for the voting equipment, robust mechanical restraints to protect against shifting of the equipment, and yet provides full frontal and side access to each piece of equipment to allow easy off- and on-loading, all within a tamper-proof framework that is as light weight as possible without sacrificing stability and security. The design is modular to allow additional carts and or stations to be integrally attached.